January 22, 2016::End of the day round-up

Your Worst Day Ever: David Avocado’s Himalayan Salt Debunked

Before I dig into this lineup, it’s of utmost importance to understand one of Wolfe’s key claims about his product. To wit: even though the salt contains only trace amounts of 84 elements, it’s their very presence that makes the product beneficial to your health, and it’s their removal during commercial salt processing that makes regular table salt “toxic“. Speak to us, oh wise one:

“In order to make table salt, natural salt is heated to high temperatures and cleaned chemically, reducing all the important minerals and leaving only sodium and chloride” –David Wolfe

Never mind that the salt you buy from Wolfe is still, by and large, nothing more than sodium chloride. He’s telling us that the mere presence of these 84 trace elements is important to our health. All of them. Uh oh.

Pass the Salt (But Not That Pink Himalayan Stuff)

In the latest issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, three new studies about the role of salt in cardiovascular disease were published. Instead of providing clear answers, they raise more questions. In a cute NEJM QuickTake cartoon video they summarize the findings of the studies. If you’d rather spend three minutes watching cartoons than reading my explanation, feel free.
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None of this really sheds any light on what we should do as individuals. Should we continue asking “pass the salt?” Should we abstain from adding salt at the table? Should we read labels and monitor the total amount of salt in our diet? Should we aim for 3–5 g a day?

These studies found associations, but they couldn’t determine causes, and they did not even attempt to measure what would happen if people changed the amount of sodium and potassium in their diets. If anything, they suggest that existing guidelines for salt restriction for the general population may be too extreme.

They also suggest that “moderation in all things” and “eat your vegetables” are still good advice.
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I found a website that reports the results of a spectral analysis of Himalayan salt. I think this is where the claim comes from. Even if this analysis is accurate, it is meaningless for health and if anything is worrisome. The amount of minerals in it is too minuscule to make any difference, and we already get plenty of the same trace minerals from other foods. They claim that two double-blind studies were done, but no such studies are listed in PubMed. There is no evidence published in peer-reviewed journals that replacing white salt with pink salt makes a shred of difference or leads to any improvement in health.

VA GOP Bill Would Require Inspection of Children’s Genitals

A state-level Virginia GOP politician (Del. Mark Cole) just proposed transphobic legislation dictating men, women and children must all use public restrooms correlating with their “correct anatomical sex.” Specifically, the legislation targets public schools where in order for the legislation to work, adults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom.

HB 663 – otherwise known as “Use of restroom facilities; penalty” – defines anatomical sex as “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy.” Relating to schools, the bill would change current law by requiring:

Local school boards shall develop and implement policies that require every school restroom, locker room, or shower room that is designated for use by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation. Such policies may also provide that a student may, upon request, be granted access, to the extent reasonable, to a single stall restroom or shower, a unisex bathroom, or controlled individual use of a restroom, locker room, or shower.

What You Need to Know About David Barton’s New Edition of The Jefferson Lies (Press Release) 

Tuesday, January 12, 2016 - MRFF EXPOSES, DENOUNCES UNLAWFUL CHRISTIAN PROSELYTIZING IN U.S. ARMY::  Is Col. Hundley an active duty senior Army officer or an evangelical Christian missionary?

Apparently, Colonel Thomas Hundley can't figure out whether he's an active duty senior Army officer or an evangelical Christian missionary? Further, DoD can't seem to, likewise, decipher whether they are paying him to be one or the other. Where the hell is the adult supervision for senior, active duty officer, Constitutional compliance at DoD? Colonel Hundley has absolutely no business or authority under American law to be conflating his Army officer rank, title and position with his professed evangelical Christian faith. He's doing it with some pretty powerful helpers. Indeed, the DoD and the United States Army are unlawfully allowing him to concomitantly push or spread his religious faith to everyone over the internet and, especially, to his many subordinates. Well over 99% of DoD personnel are of lower rank than Colonel Hundley.

Five GOP Candidates To Join Pastor Who Says AIDS Is God's Punishment For Gay People

In yet another example of what the Religious Right’s recent focus on “religious liberty” is really about, five Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to speak this weekend at a “religious freedom” event hosted by a conservative pastor who has repeatedly declared that AIDS is God’s punishment for gay people’s “immoral act” and has called for a “class action lawsuit” against homosexuality.

Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee are scheduled to join a “Free to Believe Broadcast” on Saturday, hosted by the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins and Vision America’s Rick Scarborough, two of the most outspoken anti-gay activists in the country.

Both, even while attempting to curtail the rights of LGBT people, have claimed that it is their rights that are being violated by the LGBT movement: Perkins has said that the supposed persecution of anti-gay Christians in America is inspiring ISIS, and Scarborough has declared that he is ready to burn to death in the fight against gay marriage.
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Also appearing at the event will be Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver, who has warned that gay people seek to “groom” and “entrap” children, and David and Jason Benham, brothers who became Religious Right martyrs when they lost a TV show they were set to star in after their anti-gay activism came to light.

James Dobson Does Not Understand Bisexuality: 'That's Orgies!' | Right Wing Watch

I have been sitting on this for a few days.  Pondering.  Can an individual, a prominent one at that, be so,,,so, stupid?

Back in the day, I listened to Dobson on a daily basis.  I won't go so far as to say I idolized the man but he ranked quite high. (Please don't ask,,,roflmao,,,it musta been a delusional state I was in.)  The politics weren't as obvious in those days as the Reich we know today was just in its infancy;  I was able to brush his anti-gay stance off as our walks in faith were different.  But now, I am at a loss,,,can Dobson really be that stupid?

Here is a man, a psychologist who has made a portion of his living "educating" people about homosexuality and bisexuality.  One would think he would actually know what the term bisexual means.


"I would like them to think, just for a moment, about 'LGBT,'" Dobson said. "The 'B' stand for bisexual! That's orgies!  Are you really going to support this?"

Michael Stone over at Progressive Secular Humanist makes an interesting point along the same vane of thought I had:

It is difficult to believe that a man who claims to have a Ph.D. in psychology does not know the meaning of words like “bisexual” and “orgy.”

Indeed, it may be the case that rather than being ignorant, Dobson was simply being dishonest when equating bisexuality with orgies in a despicable attempt to smear ad denigrate individuals who identify as bisexual, and by extension, the LGBT community as a whole.

It should also go without saying that there is nothing morally objectionable to consenting adults engaging in “orgies” or sex parties or group sex or polyamory. What is morally objectionable is the dissemination of false and misleading information in the attempt to defame and shame individuals.

 To which Libby Anne of at Love, Joy, Feminism adds:

Evangelicals’ understanding of LGBTQ individuals is less about reality and more about crafting an image that fits within their worldview. In evangelical parlance, homosexuality, orgies, and pedophilia—these things all naturally go together. This is why evangelicals believe that gay people are naturally promiscuous and that transgender individuals are likely to abuse children in public restrooms. This image they have crafted of LGBTQ individuals may not resemble the reality, but it does allow them to fit the issue snugly into their belief system.

As more people have openly gay individuals in their lives, evangelicals are increasingly faced with a choice. They must either deny the lived experience of the (often few) LGBTQ individuals in their lives, or they must reject the image they have been given of LGBTQ individuals by their pastors or other evangelical leaders as false. If they do the latter, they have to find a way to adjust their belief system to account for this new understanding of LGBTQ individuals. And there are evangelicals today who are doing this, though I don’t have percentages. The past of least resistance, however, is to simply deny, deny, deny, and hold tight to the unquestioned belief system, and that is what most seem to be doing, at least for the moment. It’s certainly what Dobson is doing, though I’m unsure whether he knows any LGBTQ individuals.

The problem here isn’t just religion, though it certainly is that when it comes to LGBTQ issues specifically. When we look more broadly, it’s ideology in general that is the problem. Any time people set out to fit the world around them into a specific preconceived ideology, without a willingness to also look critically at that ideology, they will end up twisting pieces to fit them into their preexisting puzzle. Religion may be the most obvious example of this, but there are others, too. Think of communists or libertarians, for instance. Any time an individuals proclaims an ideology supreme, they run the risk of finding themselves twisting pieces to fit them into it rather than being willing to adjust the ideology when things don’t fit.

So is Dobson really that stupid?  I don't think so!!

James Dobson Does Not Understand Bisexuality: 'That's Orgies!' | Right Wing Watch

Rafael Cruz Falsely Claims San Antonio Banned Pastors From Preaching From The Bible | Right Wing Watch

 First it was David Barton,

“The problem is, under the Nondiscrimation Ordinance that they just passed in San Antonio, if you did what JC did tonight and if you stand up for traditional marriage – marriage is a man and a woman – you are dismissed from office in San Antonio under the new city law. So JC, even though he’s elected by an overwhelming majority in San Antonio, he’s out the door. ‘You can’t do that. The people elected him.’ Yeah, but the new law in San Antonio says if you criticize homosexuality or homosexual marriage, you are dismissed from office.”

now it appears that daddy Cruz is up to the usual Tea Party smear tactics,,,

Speaking on a Tea Party Unity conference call last week, Rafael Cruz said that pastors in San Antonio can be fined for preaching from the Bible, a patently false claim but part of a larger Religious Right smear campaign against the city’s non-discrimination ordinance [PDF].

The ordinance added sexual orientation and gender identity to an existing [1994] city policy prohibiting discrimination, a move opposed by many Republicans, including Rafael Cruz’s son, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. The debate over the recently passed ordinance featured several over-the-top reactions, including a rant from a city councilwoman who called homosexuality “disgusting.”

While speaking on the call with extremist pastor and TPU founder Rick Scarborough, who introduced Ted Cruz at the 2012 Values Voter Summit, the elder Cruz claimed that pastors who preach Romans 1 — which some pastors interpret as a condemnation of homosexuality — can be fined $500 a day, a claim with no basis in reality.

I have yet to find any truth to his claim that pastors in San Antonio have or will face sanctions due to the city ordinance.  In reality, there is no known example of a city statute prohibiting that or any other Bible verse.

What I really do not understand, why should Americans listen to a Cuban Dominionist from Canada?

As for Rick Scarborough's claim that the “lesbian mayor of Houston” will impose a similar “sanctions [on pastors] if they preach the Bible;”  he too is full of shit. 

The San Antonio ordinance in no way bars pastors from preaching against homosexuality. Just as daddy Cruz's statement is false, so to is Scarborough's.   Houston Mayor Annise Parker’s proposed new Equal Rights Ordinance includes no such penalties for pastors who preach against homosexuality.

Considering the trio highlighted here, I am left to ponder yet again, why do they lie?


Rafael Cruz Falsely Claims San Antonio Banned Pastors From Preaching From The Bible | Right Wing Watch

See also:
S.A. council adds LGBT protections to city's non-discrination ordinance

Equality Defeats Fear and Hate: San Antonio Passes Nondiscrimination Ordinance

City of San Antonio Non-Discrimination Ordinance facts